Aronimink is hosting the PGA, but Donald Ross’ local muni Jeffersonville gets its ‘major’ next week
'The Jeff' has gotten so good that the GAP Mid-Am will be held there next Wednesday and Thursday, the first time GAP has used a public course for one of its major tournaments.
Headlines about the golf renaissance in Philadelphia over the past 16 years have mostly dealt with places like Merion Golf Club, which hosted the U.S. Open in 2013 and will do so again in 2030; Philadelphia Cricket Club, which hosted the Truist Championship last year; and Aronimink Golf Club, which this week hosts the PGA Championship, its fifth PGA or LPGA Tour event since 2010.
What those venerated sites have in common: They are very private, critically exclusive, and magnificently expensive. They also were designed by legendary architects: Hugh Wilson at Merion, A.W. Tillinghast at Cricket, and Donald Ross, who designed almost 400 courses, completing Aronimink in 1928. He called it his “masterpiece.”
Three years later, Ross and his associates finished Jeffersonville Golf Club. He never offered a review of Jeffersonville, but, unlike Philly’s Big Three, it is a place you can review yourself without waiting for an invitation from your rich uncle. It’s a public course. A course of the people.
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Almost half of the 140,000 members of the Golf Association of Philadelphia (GAP) do not belong to private clubs. GAP is sensitive to their situation. And “The Jeff,” as local range rats call it, routinely lands among the top 10 public courses in Pennsylvania.
The folks at GAP were aware.
“About three years ago we made the decision to have a major at a public facility,” GAP president Ken Phillips said. “We had a list. A lot of good names on that list. We came to Jeffersonville first. A lot of people liked the idea of playing the Mid-Am at a Donald Ross course one week after playing the PGA at another.”
And so, for the first time in its history, GAP chose a public course to host one of its major tournaments. The 43rd GAP Mid-Am will be played here next Wednesday and Thursday.
Big deal? Huge deal.
The Mid-Am routinely is held at such courses as Merion, Cricket, and even Pine Valley in New Jersey, the course often ranked No. 1 in the world. Winners of the Mid-Am include players who belong not only to those clubs but also, in the case of four-time Mid-Am winner Michael McDermott, a Georgia club called Augusta National.
Why, in an area bursting with strong public courses in prettier settings, did GAP choose Jeffersonville? It’s not bucolic, sitting off a busy main street lined with gas stations and hoagie shops. It’s not a big-shouldered course; at 6,400 yards, it’s about 1,000 yards shorter than what Rory McIlroy and the boys will face at Aronimink.
But it has great bones, clever routing, diabolical greens, is always in superb condition, and — the kicker for GAP — it is the essence of public golf.
“I’d have to say that the fact that they’re a municipally owned golf course,” Phillips said. “We have to give credit to the Board of Commissioners for giving back to the game of golf.”
A privately owned public course has a different flavor than a municipal course. Jeffersonville has been owned and operated by West Norriton Township since 1972. It used to be run out of a horse barn; it was built on the site of a horse farm and racetrack. Outside of the logo (a jockey’s silks crossed by a golf club and a riding whip) and the sign on the halfway house (The Paddock), you’d never know it. Since the completion of a $12 million clubhouse in 2024, Jeffersonville has become a regional destination for discerning golfers, but one neither too expensive for most players nor a drain on the township’s coffers.
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The cost is never more than $100 with a cart, even on the weekends. The 69 daily tee times are constantly full. The course has hosted more than 50,000 rounds, said architect Ron Prichard, who has had a hand in the course’s restoration for more than 25 years.
“This area is head-over-heels in love with this place,” said Prichard, who lives nearby. “It’s a gold mine.”
Prichard, 87, has designed or restored more than 50 courses, but he adores everything about The Jeff. He credits course superintendent Rich Shilling and his tight, six-man crew with maintaining the level of challenge and excellence that he and Ross envisioned: trimmed, deep, and well-filled bunkers; fair and fast greens; and fancy, two-toned fairways, half cut with the grain, half cut against.
I’ve played The Jeff for 25 years, but never for free. It gets better every year. I’ve probably played every public course of note from Lancaster to Scranton to the Jersey Shore.
None is better than Jeffersonville.
Most don’t come close.
Evidence: Most private golf clubs are closed on Mondays. On Monday mornings, the vehicles parked near the pro shop at Jeffersonville make it look like a German car dealership.
“It might be the proper thing to say,” said Mike Housley, Jeff’s director of golf, “but on Mondays, the quality of the cars in the lot ... Oh, yeah!”
Philly’s golf snobs flock to Jeff. That should be enough.
Phillips said this might be the first time a public course gets a GAP major, but it won’t be the last. Not with so many courses doing such a good job at improving themselves, most notably the $180 million restoration of Cobbs Creek Golf Course in Philadelphia proper.
With the weight of Tiger Woods behind the project and with a history of PGA Tour events, most folks expect Cobbs Creek to one day earn a Tour stop. Once it opens next year, expect the reviews to be glowing.
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If you ever visit Jeffersonville, you probably won’t be as impressed as you would be if Cobbs turns out as expected. You certainly won’t echo the hyperbolic language Ross used to describe Aronimink. But you will likely offer adjectives like those that professional reviewers typically use in regard to Jeffersonville: words like “amazing,” “excellent,” and “hidden gem.”
Local duffers know Jefferson isn’t hidden anymore.
Not after the restoration, and its clubhouse, and its six virtual indoor bays, and its restaurant full of craft brews — and, next week, not after the first Mid-Am ever played at a public course in the history of GAP.
The 108th PGA Championship returns to Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square for the first time in over six decades.
Marcus Hayes and Jeff Neiburg will host Gameday Central from Aronimink (Wednesday, 9 a.m.), and be sure to check out the PGA Championship Range Show from 12-2 p.m daily, starting Wednesday.
Whether you're going, watching from home, or just curious about what all the fuss is about, we've got you covered with our PGA guide and stories on everything from Aronimink's history and design, to what the players have to say about returning to the Philly area. We even made a golf video game so you can play the course and learn its secrets.
Get it all with our full PGA Championship preview. And follow the latest news and action from the course, right here.
